


Appreciated a Serenade

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, In which Dirk sings and Jake loves it, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:23:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You knew Dirk was skilled with music, what with his rapping and his 'sick beats', but you'd no idea he could sing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appreciated a Serenade

            Okay, when you think _Dirk_ and _talents_ you first think Something-That-Won’t-Be-Shared, and then you think music. God, that guy’s clever with that stuff. Even if it’s rapping and stuff. That’s music (sure, it took a while for him to convince you about it, but eventually he got to you). He’s great with notes, too, and knowing what’s what. You’d expect that he just plays all that electronic crap—sorry, _digital music—_ but that’s not all. When you’d moved in with him, leaving your empty shithole to move into his empty apartment, you hadn’t expected to see an acoustic guitar, a worn old grand piano in the lobby of the building (ten dollars an hour for use, less if you’re half-decent). To your dismay, he never played his guitar, calling it lame and boring. He blinked twice as he said _boring_ and it was obvious that he was lying, but you couldn’t convince him via casual hint that he should play it for you.

            Damn him.

            Oh, but then there’s the part where _he can sing._

            It’s a few weeks into moving in when you find out. You perch at the kitchen counter, your arm slung over it and your head resting there on your bicep. It almost isn’t comfortable, with your wiry and firm muscles that you wish weren’t so prominent because they’re so _cumbersome_ as you wait for Dirk to finish cooking. Your eyes follow him as he moves about the kitchen, poking at some kind of vegetable he’s got in a pan on the stove and then at the pieces of meat he has in another, and then heading over to the other side to mix some kind of spice rub together. Watching his hands work is almost hypnotic, and as he sprinkles in a bit of Mrs. Dash you hear his voice, soft and clear, little more than a breath.

            It’s mellow and smooth; deep notes held long and higher ones shorter. You don’t recognize the song but it’s slow, almost a lullaby. You close your eyes; focus only on the quiet sound of his under-his-voice singing. You must have let out a little sigh or something, because when you open your eyes he’s looking at you. He flashes you a little grin and is silent once more. Having not heard him before, you sit up, dropping your chin on the heel of your palm and your elbow on the counter.

            “Hey, what was that?” you ask. He tilts his head in your direction—his indication that he’s listening. “You were singing a moment ago. Why’d you stop?”

            “I wasn’t singing,” he says. He doesn’t turn to look at you, like he usually does when he speaks to you. It’s a thing of his. He likes to face people he talks to, judge their reactions. He reads more people than he does novels, but to him, they are often not much different. “I don’t sing. I rap, Jake, you know that.”

            “Then what were you just doing? Rapping? It didn’t sound like rapping to me, friend,” you disagree, frowning at the back of his head.

            He spins, reaches out and touches the tips of his fingers to the corners of your mouth. Dirk slides them up quickly and smiles at you until you end up smiling back, and he just says, “Come on, English, don’t go frowning at me now, I made your favorite dinner.”

            And really, how could you stay bothered about anything with that delicious smell wafting from the other side of the kitchen.

•

            The next time you’re in the car, driving home from lunch with Jane and Roxy. It’d been a great time out, and you’d considered bowling, but Jane had essays to write for her classes and Roxy’d had too much to drink to get any score above a two even with bumpers on the sides of the lane, so you’d both decided against it. Dirk is driving, tapping on the wheel to the beat of the song that’s playing that you aren’t paying any attention to. His gaze flashes over, meets yours—he doesn’t wear his shades when he drives, having dubbed it too dangerous—and the corner of his mouth tips up. You lean over and kiss his check when he looks back to the road and watch his grin broaden.

That’s one of your favorite things about him, you decide: his subtle happiness.

            The song changes and he reaches over, his fingers flicking the volume dial a bit to turn it up. It’s one of his favorites, this one you know, and though you wouldn’t know any of the lyrics enough to sing along or off the top of your head you’d be able to lip-sync the chorus.

Dirk, however, Dirk just sings.

            He’s doing that under-his-voice thing again, but it’s so wonderful, his voice fitting with the artist’s perfectly, melding into it, as if he were the one who’d written the song in the first place. You don’t move, trying to quiet your breathing. Maybe if he forgets you’re here he’ll sing longer. You tune out the radio and just focus on him, brushing your eyes over him and studying the way his tongue wets his lips slightly between verses, the way they move practically of their own accord to the lyrics and holding for just the right number of beats. When the song ends and he turns it back down, you take the opportunity to grab his hand.

            He squeezes yours without looking at you, rubs his thumb over the back of it, kisses your knuckles gently. He doesn’t release your hand for the way home, and you’re so, so glad you have him.

•

            You’ve resorted to waiting for him to tell you that he’ll be taking a shower without you to hear him sing—really, really sing. Most of the time, you two shower together (among other Not-To-Be-Shared things, as aforementioned), but he lets you rest when he rises early. He leans over and kisses you, quick and chaste and gentle, chuckling when you push forward to deepen it and then dropping another peck to your cheek.

            “Hey, I’m going to shower, okay?” he murmurs against your skin. You nod. You’d been awake for a while now, and usually it’s fairly unspoken—you wake up, stare at the ceiling for a while, wait for Dirk, kiss him when he wakes up, then you shower and your day begins. When you’re still asleep by the time he wakes up he showers on his own, acknowledging that you need the time to adjust to being awake before you can properly socialize with him on a comprehensible level.

            Dirk slides off the bed, heading into the bathroom and closing the door behind him without locking it. Another unspoken thing between the two of you: if you want to join him, you can, but you don’t have to, and if you don’t want to that’s fine, and vice versa. So about thirty seconds or so after the water starts up, you hop out of bed and sit on the floor in front of the door, leaning back and letting your head fall to it. To be honest, you’re often still just asleep, and don’t hear him singing. Now, though, now you want to.

            You glance over at the guitar.

            Dirk’s voice rings out; the acoustics in the bathroom and the shower bouncing it around as if showers weren’t made for anything but singing in, and a smile touches your lips. How had you not known about this talent of his before? It’s beautiful and nothing short of breathtaking.

            When he stops it comes almost as a shock, and you hop to your feet and hurry out to the kitchen to begin breakfast. You’re just as good of a chef as Dirk is, but in a simpler way, and you’re whipping together a waffle batter from scratch when he enters, toweling off his hair. He steps up behind you and wraps his arms around your waist; you lean against him and rest your head on his collar. He turns his face to the side, kisses your temple, then retrieves some fruit from the fridge to nibble on while he waits for you to finish.

            You want to bring up his singing.

            You do.

            “Why haven’t you let me hear you sing before?” you question him.

            A strawberry is half bitten-though when he pauses. “What?”

            Blood rushes to your cheeks under his cool, level stare. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Dirk Strider. I would have appreciated a serenade,” you say, tipping your chin up.

            Fingertips trace circles and letters into your back ( _I, N, L, O, V, E)._ “It was going to be a surprise,” he admits, pressed against you once more and nuzzling his face into the back of your neck. The breath that dances across your skin sends shivers down your spine. “I wasn’t going to let you know about it until I had it all memorized.”

            “All what memorized?”

            “The song I was going to play for you.”

            “Play? Like, beats?”

            “No, like guitar.”

            Before you set the first waffle up, he guides you to your room, grabs his guitar (already tuned and dust-free, how hadn’t you noticed?) and props it on his leg. Dirk strums it, all strings open, once, and then plays and sings and _Jesus Christ,_ if you hadn’t already been in love with him, you would be.

**Author's Note:**

> dirkjake is hard to write because of the way time's all fucked up for them poor canon babies so this is the one where that isn't like that and stuff ok
> 
> i'm sick of all characters ever in existence of ever having off-key singing ok maybe you think it's endearing but it's kinda weird so here's the one where there's no off-key singing at all and it's all good and well and yes


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